Week 4, 2 down and 2 to go

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Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Teaching went better today than yesterday. Although we didn't have the key to my room when we arrived at the middle school and we were about 20 minutes late getting started, the class time moved at a much better pace today than yesterday. In another classroom we started off with picture descriptions..the back-to-back exercise in which one student has to explain to another student what is missing in the picture. This took about 15 minutes and was a good way to begin the class. By the end of this warm-up we had the key and were able to get back into the classroom.

We then continued the powerpoint on American Holidays with a focus first on Halloween...therewas an additional powerpoint on Halloween with pictures of costumes, jack-o-lanterns and a child trick or treating, so overall this presentastion went well. I did a handout from the ProLingua book on American Holidays for reading and vocabulary and there were other activities like comparing China's National Day to our Independence Day. .... overall I think that this was a good presentation with some variety.

After a short break we did some tongue twisters. This was a good chance for me to try to test my Chinese...I wrote their names on the board...trying to get the tones and write the names in Pinyin. The teachers enjoyed helping me with the spelling and pronunciation. We did a competition using the tongue twisters.

Last we did a jeopardy game... I had created a board with different categories reviewing the work that we've done over the last 3 weeks -- grammar bloopers, American Holidays, prepositions, The Living Room, and occupations. It took a couple of tries for them to get the idea that their response had to be in the form of a question but finally we got it...

We went overtime but it was fun. I think that it was a good game and a good way to end the morning.

The afternoon there was a presentation by the 2 American volunteers about their universities -- Bryn Mawr and UC Davis....they worked on the presentation this weekend and I think it was fun for them...a lot of information for some of our students but they did a good job. The 2nd hour in the afternoon the teachers were divided into 6 groups to prepare a skit for a final presentation the last morning of class...Thursday.

I walked back to the hotel. I had purchased a few children's books so my bag was heavy but I needed the exercise and I needed a change. I walked up the hill to the local street cobbler and had him fix my sandal...Bass ... terrible! nothing likeTevas...the strap broke last week and I have been walking around with it flapping around...the good thing about Bass is that the sole is fit to the foot but the workmanship on the straps and on the overall shoe leaves something to be desired....

anyway I got the strap fixed...and then stopped at another bookstore. That was a good expereince....of course a crowd gathered and I could communicate very little but it's good to be out trying to communicate when I'm alone. That's when you begin to use the language and begin to see that the language is for meaningful communication.

I also went to my student's house for noodles this afternoon at lunch. Zheng Ye lives in the apartment buildings for teachers -- in an apartment similar to JiaHuichen where I've been going for Chinese lessons with the 2 of them. It's a beautiful 2-bedroom apartment with marble floors a huge livingroom and a nice kitchen and bath with a veranda where they can hang out clothes. They have a nice flat-screen TV and get the CCTV English channel, which was a treat. Jia Hui Chen came along with Judy and me and she and Zheng Ye made the noodles and cut them and prepared them...very delicious...it was such a treat to have those noodles, different from what we get here at the hotel. Zheng Ye's daughter has a fever so she was at the doctor's and then at the grandmother's...I hope that she's ok now..

Zheng Ye's sister was also there. She is a young freshman at a university in Taiyuan and she is studying teaching Chinese as a second language. Her english was quite good and you can tell she's going to be a good Chinese teacher. She's very attuned to sounds/pronunciation and understands how to pace the information that she gives the learner.

We were able to listen to some news in English this afternoon. apparently there have been 3 cases of young baby girls who were developing breasts....the families were alarmed and reported this and it was found that all 3 children were drinking the same powdered milk...and that this product contains large amounts of hormones...the newscaster was interviewing a professor who suggested that China establish something like the FDA ... but he added that such an agency wouldn't be effective unless the government established some severe penalities for such criminal actions...something like life in prison or the death penalty....

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